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Pharmacy must firmly establish itself as a caring, compassionate profession, Rob Darracott argues, if it is to fit in with changing healthcare models. Charlotte Rixon reports

Community pharmacy needs to increase the speed at which it redefines itself as an integrated, care-giving health profession, claimed Professor Rob Darracott, chief executive of Pharmacy Voice, at the 2015 UCL School of Pharmacy New Year lecture. In his talk, entitled 'Care, Compassion and Community Pharmacy: A Dance to the Music of Time', Professor Darracott declared that the Francis report had been €a wake-up call for all those working in healthcare€, and an opportunity for the primary care professions to re-evaluate what care and compassion means to them.

Enough evidence

Professor Darracott said that there was already enough evidence to support pharmacy's ability to provide tailored care to patients and that compassion needed to be embedded into pharmacists' roles, rather than viewed as €an add-on€. He went on to discuss how pharmacy could tackle obstacles to change so that it could be a part of the new models of care outlined in NHS England's Five Year Forward View. In particular, he urged the profession to overcome its €poor track record of implementing good ideas€ by €moving on from endless pilots€.

€We can't keep waiting for permission to play a bigger role in healthcare delivery. The time is right to act now, changing how we work and doing things better,€ he told delegates. €We do far more than dispense medicines and we need to redefine our role as one of patient-centred care and compassion that values measured outcomes.€

During the lecture, Professor Darracott also argued that the current A&E crisis could have been lessened had the Government placed greater emphasis on developing community pharmacy and other primary care services rather than restructuring the NHS. €Pharmacy wants to work with the NHS €“ but does the NHS want to work with us?€ He expressed the need to address the €unduly rigid rules€ which currently govern who can prescribe prescription-only medicines and how long prescriptions should last, and urged the profession to come together to overcome €uncertainties and problems of weak or confused leadership.€ 

In closing, he set down the challenge for pharmacists, other primary care clinicians and NHS England to work together to develop a €universal model of primary care that is really fit for the 21st century€.

Future roles in cancer prevention

Professor Darracott's lecture coincided with the launch of UCL's new report, 'Overcoming Cancer in the 21st Century', which recognises an enhanced role for community pharmacists in cancer prevention and early detection if barriers for new care models can be overcome. Some ways in which pharmacy could improve cancer prevention and care in the future, he said, could be through providing €enhanced nearpatient risk and diagnostic testing, computer-based selfcare and clinical decisionmaking support€.

This view was supported by Professor David Colin-Thomé, former national clinical director for primary care, who agreed that pharmacists could take on a more direct patient-caring role as IT systems and self-testing technologies improve. Professor Colin-Thomé also envisioned a future in which €many pharmacists end up working in general practice€.

Professor Jack Cuzick, director of the Wolfson Institute of Preventative Medicine, championed the use of preventative medicines, including statins and low-dose aspirin, with a key role for pharmacists in explaining the risks and benefits to patients. €There is no doubt in my mind,€ he said at a press conference, €that taking aspirin daily looks to be the most important single thing we can do to reduce cancer after stopping smoking and reducing obesity, and will probably be much easier to implement.€